David Simon's & My Thoughts on The Wire, S3, Episode 3 - Dead Soliders

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Denis Lehane writes the third episode from a story by David Simon, who actually does a really good commentary for it. So good, that I found after transcribing a good portion of it below, I no longer had the head-space for writing up my own impressions, let alone the time.

Lehane is a lot like Richard Price in that he writes gritty crime novels with an ensemble cast of characters - focusing on cops. He wrote a book on the 1918 Police Strike - in 2008.

Lehane described working on his historical novel, The Given Day, as "a five- or six-year project" with the novel beginning in 1918 and encompassing the 1919 Boston Police Strike and its aftermath. According to Lehane, "The strike changed everything....It had a big effect on the unionization movement, and Prohibition came on the heels of that, then Calvin Coolidge promising to break the unions. That's all linked to what's going on now.". While Lehane's epic novel centers on the 1919 Boston police strike, it contains a national sweep and might be the first of a trilogy or perhaps a four-book series. The novel was published in October, 2008.

Simon wrote a non-fictional novel published in 1991 - "Real Homicide Book" or "Homicide Life on the Streets" - which he later based the television series of the same name on. Jay Landsman, a real life person, who makes an appearance as an actor in the third season, and is a fictional character in the show, was one of the policemen featured in the Real Homicide book.


David Simon in his commentary for Episode 3, S3, Dead Soliders, mentions how hard he worked to avoid television cliches. 1)Playing the actual substance of the case almost without dialogue, McNulty is going to figure out a murder on basis of physical evidence and physical logic - it would ruin it to explain it, desperation to explain every last detail, to show every nuance, they actually ruin the story - something that tv and even film does too often. Because most things in life go by without explanation. (Dedication to replicating realism, and/or authenticity.) Compare to every legal procedural on television - they show the wrong things. 2) With Bunk - the avoided the buddy cop stereotype, a friend but not a buddy cop. 3) Works to get the authenticity of Baltimore.

Denis Lehane - conceived all of the Omar scene in episode 3 - which just about killed them. There was so much gun-shot they got calls from blocks away. Simon admits to referencing the American Western. Stating that the American Crime Story has replaced in the American consciousness in many ways the American Western. They are constantly referencing the elements of the American Western films and American Gangster films, and the American noir films. Such as the Wild Bunch by Peckinpah, Red River, Good, the Bad, the Ugly...these films live in the American consciousness and culture. They are ingrained in us. My mother told tales of how she played Cowboys and Indians, and Gunfighters and Marshalls, just as the kids on the street in this episode play cops and robbers. So if you are catching bits of American Western or Omar feels like an old West gunfighter? That's deliberate and the significance may be lost on people outside the US, I can't tell. It is also a very male genre, unfortunately, which I also happen to adore - like my mother and my grandmother before me who loves Westerns and Noir films...if you think I'm an encyclopedia on this stuff? You should meet my mother - she saw Red River twenty times.

The bit about trying to recover an officer's gun actually happened to Ed Burns' partner. They steal from real life, real cases, real people whenever possible. Simon is an amazing at giving commentary. "You can only measure a city's crime by the number of people shot, you can't make a body disappear, you can disappear a rape, a robbery...people get promoted playing these games." He discusses how they show in this episode the way you work the numbers, manipulate the data and statistics. No one wants to take responsibility - all the leaders want to place blame on someone else. In this world, we have Omar, an individual, an outsider, a lone man - Omar who takes responsibility.

Season 3 was about - "I think we are going to legalize drugs." And the 40-degree day bit was all Denis Lehane - it's the flipside of the homicide unit, where no one takes responsibility. Denis Lehane like Richard Price excels at little bits. Perfectly set up, and perfectly plotted. Shows for both groups - everybody is manipulating the numbers, jockeying for position, no one taking responsibility - but rank and file, people on the streets become dead bodies as a result. The Wire is cynical about our post-modern systems and infrastructure and its affect on individuals - how they are thrown away.

BTW, The whole Cole funeral is a way of honoring Robert Colesberry, who was the executive producer and director for the Wire, and it turns out also played Ray Cole. He was detail oriented. And he was soft-spoken and took care of himself, quiet. So they chose to pick a quiet, behind the scenes death - on a stair-master, and thought about it in great detail. (Bob Colesberry did Mississippi Burning, After Hours, and the Corner - they reference each of these in Jay Landsman's euology. All Colesberry's great works.) Simon admits they don't really have this tradition of singing the song in the bar...but they should. An Irish song - and of course everyone knows it. The song is part of their culture. In US - there's a saying, all cops become Irish at some point (coined by Tom Wolf).

The actress who plays Grace - the nice girl and plays the down on her luck sister. They also try not to go with the Hollywood ending...where the guy gets the girl. Not the straight redemptive tale. Again push towards realism. Not romanticism.

Small details of misapplication that makes writing real. The actor playing Bubs mispronounced McNulty and said McNutty - and they kept it, because it was golden. Often the writer steals from the actors and the actors steal from the writers - that collaboration makes it real.

What's interesting is Lehane wrote part of it, Simon another part - it really is a collaborative process.

The character of Carchietti character is based on reformist characters, not just the Baltimore Mayor who did an insurgency campaign. A lot of people believed he was based on the real Baltimore Mayor's election because it was similar. Simon denies this -stating fiction is fiction, we borrow, little more.

Ed Norris - the actual police Commissioner of Baltimore, Maryland - interrupts McNulty and Bunk drinking in the street- he vomits.

He finishes the commentary...with a statement about how there are three deaths in the episode examined, D'Angelo, Tosha, and finally Cole. The Dead Soliders.



I love listening to a good writer's commentary for an excellent tv series. To see what the writer wanted to tell me. You can learn a lot from people discussing what they meant to tell you and how they tried to do it through their art. It lends the art a texture, a crunchiness that leaves a lasting impression. Sometimes, not always, it can completely ruin the art but with others it can enrich it, make it even better, resonate all the more as it does here.

Will try to do a few impressions...on what I thought of this episode, hopefully Simon's commentary won't influence me too much.

Don't look to the gods to save you, This is Balitmore - Burrell.

Impressions on Dead Soliders - Episode 3, S3, of The Wire



* McNulty and Greggs - interesting pair. Last season they'd teamed up at the end and found the Wire's next case - Prop Joe and Stringer Bell. Both want Stringer. Bad. But because of the foul-up on Cheese and the Dog, they lost the Wire on Prop Joe and now have to go after this Kettle character that neither care about - and seems to be more about making Cedric's superiors happy and advancing Cedric.
Prez states - after Greggs mouths off to Cedric (McNulty is busy investigating D's death), that McNulty is here in spirit.

There's a later scene, a true gem, and one of many reasons I love this show and think it is amongst the best television series that I've seen - is Greggs and McNulty chugging brews on an old train platform. Discussing their marital issues - which are scarily similar. As Greggs states:"Don't tell me I'm becoming that kind of asshole? Oh lord, I'm becoming fucking McNulty." McNulty cackles.
West has excellent chemistry with his fellow actors, actually they all do, and it is so effortless. (I realize how effortless after watching True Blood - watching the Wire after True Blood and before True Blood can be a jarring experience. Although I like them both for vastly different reasons. But they are admittedly not in the same league. Simon can write circles around Alan Ball. And yes, I've seen Six Feet Under and that film he won an Oscar for starring Kevin Spacey, American something or other. YMMV. Still enjoy True Blood...it's brain candy.)

* Another great McNulty scene which echoes the Fuck scene in episode 4 of S2, where McNulty figures out how D died purely with logic and acting it out, almost no dialogue. As Simon points out in his commentary - they deliberately avoid the mistakes so many tv police shows and legal dramas make - they don't over-explain it. Which is what I loved about Homicide Life on the Streets, and The Good Wife. Here - McNulty figures out that it is impossible for D'Angelo to have hung himself on a doorknob with that type of ligature. Another, maybe. But not that one.

*Donnett meanwhile keeps trying to get hold of Stringer to warn him that McNulty is asking questions about D'Angelo's death. Methinks she knows D was murdered.

*Bunny delivers the line forshadowed in last week's episode - "I'm going to legalize drugs." They laugh, but I think he is serious. He plans on pushing the drug dealers out of the residential districts..and to the outlying ones. This plan by the way - has been done. I'm almost positive it was what Commissioner Ray Kelly and Ruddy Giulani did in NYC back in the day - they herded the drug dealers to the outlaying burroughs/districts and away from Manhattan.

Bunny also does something novel - he chooses not to cheat and play the numbers game that Valcheck and all his cronies play. Instead he tells the truth - there's five percent rise. He's ripped for it.
Rawls rips him. Rawls is interesting - I can't tell if he cares or if he just wants the numbers to add up. Rawls and Stringer are paralleled here - Rawls rips into his men and tells them to give him good numbers, good numbers like Daniels has. Stringer does the same in a rather funny 40-degree day scene.

*The 40 Degree Day - Stringer does a speech about how they had themselves a 40 degree day, only one of theirs died, and one of Omar's and they lost part of the stash, but hey it could be worse. Not.
A 40-degree day is nothing to be satisfied about. It's not something you remember. You don't want a 40-degree day, you want a 60 -80 degree day, when you are barbecuing outside. After he finishes his speech and thinks he got through to his dealers. One of the kids says - so yeah, we're going to have ourselves a real 40-degree day. Poor Stringer looks like he wants to just bang his head against a wall repeatedly.

*Omar - the gun fight that leads to Tosha's death and references numerous American Westerns and Crime films, is fascinating - it starts with Tosha begging the guy to help her find her missing child, then
the stick-up, then the discovery, then the gun-shot, then Tosha killed by a richochet. Bunk who is called to the case - assumes she's just a civilian, an innocent bystander. Bunk didn't want to go to it - and tries to pass it off on Norris (a real cop) or Cole (who dies on his stairmaster and was played by the late great Robert Colesberry who produced films like Mississippi Burning and After Hours and also directed last season's finale). Bunk is supposed to be hunting Dozeman's gun, Dozeman is the cop who got shot by a street thug and lost his gun (I think the street thug shot him with hi gun). Bunk would rather be working the Tosha case. The episode ends with Cole's funeral and Toshas.
With Omar taking responsibility for her death, wracked with guilt - a nice parallel to the politicians and cops who try to hide the deaths and crimes within their numbers, manipulating them.
Omar is the very last frame of film - smoking, looking at the funeral parlor Tosha's body rests at, unable to enter, because Stringer has it guarded with his men.

*Before I go to bed - one last bit - PRop Joe's comment to Stringer is golden - "The thing that kills cops more than bullets or anything else, is boredom. They can't handle boredom, makes them crazy.
Keep things fucking boring, String and they'll leave off us."

Which ironically is what Bunny is aiming for - boredom...to make it so there's no gunfights. Things remain quiet. You can sell your dope, just don't do it here - do it somewhere else.

*Carchetti - we see Carchetti fucking this girl in the bathroom, as he does, he is looking at himself in the mirror. Depicting the double-sided nature of the character. Somewhat narcissitic and willing to use anything or anyone to get ahead, the only person he cares for - the reflection in the mirror - getting off on watching himself fuck.

Okay, off to bed.